When the future of Auroville seeks a future in Auroville

Some time ago, Auroville Campus Initiative, part of SAIIER’s further education activities, initiated the Swadharma programme, which aims at helping youth from all around the world find their path in life. While this programme has been running smoothly for the past two and half years, none of our Aurovilian youth has shown any interest in participating.

The lack of possibilities for pursuing higher education is one reason why most of the Auroville youth leave to pursue their higher studies elsewhere, sometimes returning only many years later. After interviewing a few young adults who followed this path, ACI discovered that this was a healthy and necessary “exile”, as these youngsters often crave some fresh air and anonymity after spending their lives in a small city.

Even though ACI understood the importance of leaving Auroville as a young adult to explore the world and make a conscious decision to come back or to settle elsewhere, they still believed that there should be an opportunity for those who want to pursue higher studies within Auroville to do so.

The Auroville Gap Year Programme is intended to do this. Designed by Sophie, Manoj, Lalit and Valentine, the vision was simple, yet ambitious. It would be a two part programme, catering to each participant’s individual interest.

The first part of the programme would be common for all participants, while the second part would consist of an apprenticeship in a unit of Auroville.

It began on September 24th, with seven participants: Ganesh D., Ganga, Jonas, Mahana, Jeeva H., Kalai G., and Aswini J. They were later joined by Arpana and Ahilya, who heard of the programme once it had begun but blended in fantastically.

The participants spent the first week introspecting, exploring themselves and setting goals for their future, using tools such as Vision Boards, Ikigai, and finding their values.

They participated in a Non-Violent Communication deep listening workshop with L’aura Joy, which was a leap out of the comfort zone for some and a revelation for others. Some also participated in the Y-PEER training organised by Youth Link and facilitated by Juan Andres and Anna, in which they learned techniques to educate their peers about issues like gender sensitivity, peer pressure, and safe sexual practices.

After the exploration of the Self came the exploration of Society.

Although most of these youngsters have grown up or were born here, they were never given a detailed explanation about the Working Groups, how the commercial units function, where maintenances come from etc. At their request, meetings were organised with people from Financial Services, the Town Development Council, SAIIER, Housing Service, Working Committee and the Residents Assembly Service.

Kalai, who was born in Auroville but always went to outside schools, admitted: “I was totally unaware of how the system worked over here. I was out of Auroville for some time, so this programme helped me to understand the economic system, how the system works, how units are running here…”

When asked if she would have liked to learn such things in school earlier, Ganga answered: “Now that I have an interest and want to learn, it interests me. But if I’d been told about it while I was in Transition School, I wouldn’t have paid attention.” The other participants agreed.

Their biggest discovery? The Master Plan: “When we met Divya to find out more about Mother’s plan for Auroville I was really surprised... I knew the Mother had a plan, but I did not know what it was. That was really interesting” says Mahana.

Based on their emerging domains of interest, more sessions were organised. There was Creative Writing with Francesca, who taught them techniques to “open the tap of Inspiration,” and six design sessions organised by Lalit, each covering a different theme, including kolam design with Grace.

They visited UpCycling, where Marc showed them the amazing products that can be made with “waste”. The youngsters’ enthusiasm touched him, inspiring him to possibly start a design course for young Aurovilians.

The group also visited Solitude Farm, where Krishna enlightened them about the benefits of eating locally-grown food. This left a very strong impression on them, and Jeeva, Kalai and Ganesh explored other farms such as Buddha Garden and Auro-Orchard, volunteering and studying the different techniques used.

A beautiful surprise for the participants was how open the Aurovilians were to share their stories and experience with the youth, as everyone they came into contact with was very enthusiastic and welcoming.

Coming from different academic backgrounds, they reflected on the differences in their education. “My schooling was done in Pondicherry. It was a hard time there. In my college, we had classrooms, we had laboratories, we had machines, they taught us design, everything. But in Auroville we have a big laboratory, which is nature, and we can find everything in nature” says Kalai, who left his job as an engineer in Coimbatore to join the Gap Year. His new interest is in exploring diverse farming techniques in Auroville.

As this programme is based on individual motivation and self-discipline as the participants needed to explore activities on their own, we asked them about the cliché that the Auroville youth tends to be wild, free, and careless. Ganga answers, “We are a lot freer than kids outside and we have more choice, and sometimes, some kids lag off a bit. Obviously, you have kids just driving around. You eventually get back on track, it’s part of the normal growth of youth, I think. In the end, I believe that here we do things more out of choice, we do things that we really like to do instead of settling for just any job.”

The next step was exploring their domains of interest. Mahana chose yoga, Jonas and Aswini design, Arpana education, Jeeva and Kalai farming, Ganesh mechanical engineering, and Ganga continued her exploration of art, while Ahilya and Jonas started a project with L’aura on Restorative Circles.

As they deepen their research and exploration on their own, collective sessions will take place less frequently, until they commit to an apprenticeship and only meet their batch mates and facilitators once a week. At that time they will make a PowerPoint presentation, summarizing their latest activities away from the group.

When asked if they would recommend that others take a Gap Year to explore themselves, they all said “yes”. Aswini says, “It has helped me in a lot of different ways. I really needed a break. I think this is the perfect place, where you are doing something and you’re not just sleeping at home”.

Ganga agrees. “I would definitely recommend it because it has helped me a lot. It’s a good base for your future, it brings more clarity. When you study the classic academic subjects, you’re doing something but you don’t really know for what, and that’s kind of depressing. I think it’s good to take a break and see what you want to do.

“I think it’s also really good to take action for yourself, because when you’re in school you’re told what to do, but here you build up discipline to create stuff for yourself. I think that’s really good.’

Kalai would also recommend it to anyone who, like him, is doing a job they are not interested in.

One final request came from Ganesh: “If I could ask for anything from Auroville, I would say: please build a university. Auroville needs to think more about higher education.”